


getting there the hard way

by sadlikeknives



Category: Long Time Gone - Dixie Chicks (Song)
Genre: F/F, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-10 21:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12921078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: "You gotta dream big, Delia," Melanie said.Delia dreamed of Melanie, wasn't that big enough?





	getting there the hard way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NYCScribbler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NYCScribbler/gifts).



The thing was, all through high school Delia never really thought Melanie would _leave_. Right up until she was packing the car, Delia thought all her talk of Nashville was just that: talk. Like when Delia's uncle Jim went on about everything he was going to do when he won the lottery; of course he was never going to really win. It was just nice to think about.

Of course, she should have known that anyone with a voice like Melanie's was destined for bigger things than their little podunk town. She supposed she'd just been fooling herself that there could possibly be enough here—that _she_ could possibly be enough—to keep her here.

"Come with me," Melanie said, standing in Delia's parents' driveway next to her beat-up Honda, already so loaded down with all Melanie's stuff there wasn't a space for Delia, unless, she supposed, they moved Melanie's guitar out of the shotgun seat, and then where were they gonna put it? Melanie was definitely going to need her guitar if she was going to make it big in Nashville. Was it supposed to ride in Delia's lap all the way to Tennessee? Where would she put _her_ stuff? Melanie never thought about the practical things like that.

Those weren't the real problems, anyway. "What am I gonna do in Nashville?" Delia asked. "And—my mama needs me, and who'd play piano at the church? I can't just up and _leave_ , Melanie!"

"There ain't nothing here worth staying for," Melanie argued, and Delia thought, _What about me? I'm here._ "All the farms are drying up, now that everyone's worked out that tobacco, you know, kills you." Not that that stopped plenty of people, Delia's father included, from smoking it.

"My daddy's thinking about putting in soy," Delia told her.

Melanie's nose scrunched up at the thought, the same way Delia's had the first time her father had mentioned it. "Soy? Can you even grow soy here?"

"I don't know, but he says the government gives good subsidies for soy, so I guess we'll find out."

"You're gonna stick around here for soy subsidies? Come on. You gotta dream big, Delia," Melanie said, swinging the hand she had grasped in both of hers back and forth, and Delia thought, _But I do._ She dreamed about Melanie, wasn't that big enough?

She shook her head, shaking it off and telling Melanie 'no' at the same time. "You write to me, okay?" she said instead of any of the things longing to burst out of her, instead of, _Stay_. "And don't forget me when you're a big star, you hear me?"

Melanie laughed and took one of her hands off Delia's to brush a strand of hair out of her face. "Like I could ever forget you." Except then she got in her car and she left, and Delia was left feeling pretty sure she'd already been forgotten.

Melanie texted her every now and then at first, and sent emails. She called, now and again, but she knew how Delia hated talking on the phone so that was rare. At first, when she'd run into Melanie's mama after church or at the Winn-Dixie, they'd compare notes: "Melanie told me she had a gig in a bar coming up," "Oh, yes, she told me it went just great, she thinks she'll have a record deal any day now." But as time went by Melanie got more and more closed-lipped to both of them about how her trajectory toward stardom was going, and Delia and Mrs. Banks had less and less to chat about over the tomatoes.

Years went by, and no one really talked about Melanie anymore. She hadn't responded to Delia's texts in ages, so she'd stopped sending them. She hadn't even come home for Christmas in a few years, and even her brother Jake who lived in Indiana made it home for Christmas. She hadn't made it big, either. Every now and then Delia would hear someone mention her, the Banks' daughter who'd left to become a star in Nashville, always with this nasty bite like Melanie should've known better than to be a tall poppy, should've known it couldn't possibly be that easy. 

"I heard she was livin' in her car," she heard one time at the nail salon, and she knew that couldn't possibly be true. She hoped that couldn't possibly be true, at least. Mrs. Pruitt had noticed her then and asked her, "Delia, honey, you and that Melanie Banks used to be thick as thieves," ("That's one way to put it," Nicki Barnhouse muttered from the other pedicure chair, and everyone pretended they hadn't heard her.) "Haven't you heard anything from her lately?" and Delia had had to tell her, to Mrs. Pruitt's great dissatisfaction, that no ma'am, she hadn't. 

Delia always wanted to defend Melanie, to tell the busybodies it wasn't Melanie's fault those Nashville people didn't know perfect when they heard it, but honestly, she was pretty mad at Melanie, too. There was a part of her that was viciously glad Melanie was struggling, that it hadn't been easy sailing to stardom all the way over there in Tennessee, away from Delia.

Delia started to think about settling down. She wanted kids, and she wasn't getting any younger, and she would've been fine with a guy, honestly, but most of the available men around her age were no catch—most of them divorced at least once by now, half of them on meth or something else—and none of them were Melanie. So she kept on playing the piano on Sundays and helping her daddy on the farm, working her job at the flower shop, and ignoring the talk, the clucking, "I don't think that Blackwell girl will ever get married"s, and kept her head up. Kept on going.

And then Melanie came back.

The first Delia heard or saw of her was on Sunday morning, when she happened to glance up from the piano and see her sitting next to her parents in the fifth pew. She was so startled she almost missed the next chord, but only almost—she'd played "Rock of Ages" so many times by then she could've done it blindfolded. After the service, her mama rushed over to Melanie's, exclaiming about how good it was to have her back, even just for a visit.

"Oh, no," Mrs. Banks said, somewhere between proud and relieved,"she's stayin' this time."

"Looks that way," Melanie said. She looked worn down, defeated about it. "Yeah." She looked over Delia's mom's shoulder at her and said, sounding vaguely guilty, "Delia. Hey."

"Hey, Melanie," Delia said, cautious, reserving judgment. "Welcome home."

Misty McDaniels came over then, fussing about how they just had to get Melanie back in the choir, everyone remembered what a beautiful voice she had, and Delia took the chance to slip off, sliding through the rest of the after-church chatter like a fish through water and heading home to finish getting Sunday dinner together.

Melanie showed up that afternoon, at about three, looking about as awkward as Delia felt. She didn't want to have this conversation in her childhood bedroom, or in the living room in front of her parents, so they went outside, sat at the picnic table in the backyard with glasses of sweet tea. "You're still living at home, I see," Melanie said. She didn't sound judgmental, but then, how could she, when she was apparently back in what used to be her room at the Banks'.

"It's cheaper," Delia told her. "No point moving out when it's just me." She'd saved up quite a bit of money for a house, for when she did have a reason to move out, but for some reason she didn't want to tell Melanie that just now.

Melanie nodded, went silent for a while, then said, "I get why you're mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you," Delia lied.

Melanie rolled her eyes. "Sure you're not."

Okay, she was mad at her. "I didn't hear from you for nineteen months! You could've been dead for all I knew!" That was hyperbole; they would have heard if Melanie was dead. But it didn't feel like it at that moment. "And I heard a rumor you were living in your _car_ \--"

"That was just for a little while!" Melanie broke in, like that was supposed to somehow make it better.

" _Jesus_ , Melanie!"

"I know, I know, I—it wasn't anything like I thought it would be. Its all trucks and beer and girls in cut-off jeans--"

"You like all of those things," Delia couldn't help pointing out.

"Well, yeah, but—none of it has any _soul_ any more. Like they got money but they don't have Cash." It sounded worn-in, like something Melanie had thought was clever the first time she said it to her Nashville friends, and now it had gotten a bit old and stale from repetition. "And I...I missed you."

"Coulda fooled me," she spat, and Melanie winced.

"Please, can't we start over?"

"Melanie, how the hell are you and me supposed to start over?" You might as well, Delia thought, ask the moon to start over.

"No, okay," Melanie agreed, looking down at her hands. "You're right. That was a stupid question. I don't want to start over with you. I just want to go back."

"I don't know if we can do that, either," Delia told her, but Melanie reached across her table and grabbed her hand, and it still felt like it belonged there.

"Please? Can't we try?"

Delia gave. She always gave, when it was Melanie. "All right," she said. "I guess we could try."

"I'm not gonna fuck it up this time," Melanie promised her.

"Melanie Banks!" Delia gasped. "Such language, on a Sunday!"

Melanie laughed, and she was still beautiful. Delia might be a little doomed. Just as mercury-quick, though, she sobered up and said, "I never meant to hurt you, leaving like I did. You know that, don't you?"

"You hurt me anyway, Melanie," Delia told her softly.

"Yeah," Melanie agreed, just as soft. "I know. I'm sorry."

"But you're back now. So I guess we just...see where we go from here."

Where they went from there turned out to be, about eighteen months later, a rambling fixer-upper of a house and a bit of land, enough for a good garden and a yard for the kids that would be coming along as soon as they figured out how they were going to get them, down the road from Delia's parents so they could help out with the kids, and Delia could help out with the farm, and not too far from Melanie's parents, either, for the same reasons. Melanie had gotten a job waitressing at the diner—apparently she'd done a lot of waitressing in Nashville—at first, and then she'd been hired as the new receptionist at the junior high when Mrs. Heathcock retired. She'd done a lot of receptionisting in Nashville, too, she said. They did all right.

A dog showed up one day, dropped off more likely than not, and they got her fixed and got her her shots, which more or less made her theirs. Delia named her Loretta, mostly to preempt Melanie naming an actual child that. "There's always Dolly," Melanie said, leaning against her on the porch swing.

"No," Delia told her patiently.

"Reba. Wynonna. I got lots of 'em."

"Our poor children," Delia sighed. She considered, and conceded, "Johnny's not a bad name. Well, John, anyway."

"You'd name a girl John?" Melanie asked, feigning shock. "Delia Blackwood, I never."

"Shut up, you," Delia said, and kissed her.

"And here I thought I was dreaming big when I left for Nashville," Melanie said softly against her mouth.

"I would've told you," Delia told her. "If you'd have listened."

"Well," Melanie said, leaning in to kiss her again, "I'm listening now."

Tomorrow was Sunday. They'd go to church, where Delia would play the piano and Melanie would sing with that angel voice in the choir, and then they'd go to Melanie's parents' house, because her mama was making chicken and dumplings. Maybe after, they'd go to Home Depot and argue over paint colors. It was a good life. It was the only one Delia had ever wanted.


End file.
